Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — In an escalation of the angry rhetoric between House Republicans and the White
House, aides to House Speaker John Boehner assailed President Barack Obama yesterday for dismissing
Boehner’s lawsuit against the White House as a “stunt.”

Michael Steel, a Boehner spokesman, said that “the American people, their elected
representatives, and the Supreme Court have all expressed serious concerns about the president’s
failure to follow the Constitution. Dismissing them with words like ... ‘stunt’ only reinforces
their frustration.”

This week, Boehner, R-West Chester, said he plans to file a lawsuit against the White House,
contending that Obama has violated the Constitution for not carrying out laws approved by
Congress.

In an interview aired yesterday with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s
Good Morning America, Obama said that the lawsuit “is a stunt. But what I’ve told Speaker
Boehner directly is, ‘If you are really concerned about me taking too many executive actions, why
don’t you try getting something done through Congress?’

“I am not going to apologize for trying to do something while they’re doing nothing.”

House Republicans have sharply criticized the administration for delaying key sections of the
2010 health law, even though GOP lawmakers oppose the law.

Earlier this year, the administration ruled that Americans could keep their insurance policies
for another two years even if they don’t meet the minimum requirements of the new health law, and
it delayed until 2016 a mandate that small companies offer coverage to their workers.

Obama continued to hammer away at the theme in a speech yesterday in Minneapolis. Pointing out
that he signed an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay workers a minimum wage of
$10.10 per hour, the president said, “Republicans are mad at me for taking these actions.

“They’re not doing anything, and then they’re mad that I’m doing something. I’m not sure which
of the things I’ve done they find most offensive, but they’ve decided they’re going to sue me for
doing my job.”

Obama made his comments one day after the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that he violated the
Constitution when he used recess appointments in 2012 to fill three vacancies on the National Labor
Relations Board and install former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray as director of the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Because the Senate last year approved Cordray’s nomination, the ruling did not affect his
serving in the post.